Video games, pen&paper RPGs and other nerdery

Jasyla’s Gaming Questionnaire

You can tell I am off work this week, because I actually have time to blog.

Jasyla over at Cannot Be Tamed just made the transition over from WoW to general video gaming blog. In order to settle into her own niche, she started a gaming questionnaire that I thought is pretty neat. Also, I highly recommend her blog, I really enjoy her game commentary.

When did you start playing video games?

I must have been 9 years old, when I first saw and played a video game. I actively started playing them on my own when I was 14 years old and begged my parents to buy me a Commodore computer.

What is the first game you remember playing?

The first video game I remember playing was Pong, at my best friend’s house. I must have been 8 or 9 years old. They had one of those new-fangled consoles. I was so amazed, and a touch jealous. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I sucked at it though. Then for a while there was nothing, until suddenly little handheld games got popular in Germany. My friends all had Pac-Man. My parents bought me a game called Tutankham. I played this months. It had a little thumbstick you used to control your dude through the maze. Good times.

This was the handheld I had. Oh man, I feel 13 all over again.

PC or Console?

PC, aaaaaaaall the way. I bought my first PC in 1992, and while I convinced my ex that it was for studying, it really was all about the games, even then. The first game I got for it was Civilization, the first one, and that already went way over my head. I never ever owned a console. Ever. There wasn’t a single game that I wanted to play that I couldn’t play on PC as well. This has changed in recent years, and I am seriously considering getting a console.

XBox, PlayStation, or Wii?

If I were to buy a console, it would be a Playstation 4. I would love to play Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us, those are really two of the games that convince me that a PS4 is a must. Also, I dunno, I don’t like some of the things that Microsoft are doing with XBoxOne, including that aggravating exclusivity deal for Rise of the Tomb Raider. I was never tempted by a Wii, because I knew if I used the fitness stuff, it’d be a fad and I’d never touch it again after a week.

What’s the best game you’ve ever played?

That’s a very subjective question, because over the years there have been many ‘best’ games. As a whole, I would probably say the Mass Effect series considered as a whole. It’s one of those once in a lifetime experiences for me.

What’s the worst game you’ve ever played?

I try to pick the games that I play carefully so that I don’t end up with total shite. I’d probably have to say Ultima VIII. Ultima IV until both parts of VII were amazing games, so expectations for VIII were incredibly high. And then you ended up with a buggy game with platforming, no more turn-based combat and above all a deeply disappointing story. I never tried Ultima IX after this disaster.

Name a game that was popular/critically adored that you just didn’t like.

Civ IV. Everyone seems to call it the pinnacle of the series. I bought the whole package including all expansions during a Steam sale. I played the tutorial, didn’t get it at all and gave up in frustration. I just don’t get Civ-games. My runner-up would be Skyrim. Take your sandbox games and love them, but stay away from me.

Name a game that was poorly received that you really like.

Dragon Age 2. People like to claim that this is when Bioware jumped the shark. It has a user score of 4.3 on Metacritic. It recycles almost all of the game areas, because I think the devs had a lot of pressure to release this game earlier than it should have been. And yet for me it beats DA:O hands-down, for better story and by far the deeper characters. Some of the best characters Bioware ever wrote. I love this game. – As runner-up, I want to mention Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, which I thought was a fitting end to the Ezio trilogy of games, who is one of my all-time beloved video game characters ever. I seem to be the only one who really enjoyed it. It could have done without the Tower Defense mini-game, that part sucked.

What are your favourite game genres?

RPGs, good action-adventures, stealth games.

Who is your favourite game protagonist?

My favorites would be FemShep, sassy Lady Hawke and Ezio Auditore.

Describe your perfect video game.

My perfect video game excels through story-telling. It makes me deeply care about the characters in it. The genre almost doesn’t matter. I would love for a crazy conspiracy theory setting. A bit like The Secret World, but single-player. Maybe even dystopian. That’d be cool.

What video game character do have you have a crush on?

Probably Lady Hawke, or Liara T’Soni. FemShep is too intimidating.

What game has the best music?

For video game music, I am afraid nothing gives me the shivers as much as the World of Warcraft vanilla soundtrack. I also enjoy listening to the Mass Effect soundtrack a lot.

Most memorable moment in a game:

When you get the Reaper reveal in Mass Effect 1. Total game changer. It changed everything. What a stunner. Watch the video at your own risk, major spoiler for ME1.

Scariest moment in a game:

I don’t play horror games because I am a big sissy. I also don’t watch horror movies, but have read all Stephen King books, go figure. The one exception being The Walking Dead. The whole of Episode 2 in season 1 filled me with such terrible foreboding. When you then find Mark at the dairy, late in the episode, I thought that was just utterly dreadful.

Most heart-wrenching moment in a game:

I sobbed my eyes out when I played Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. The whole last stretch of the game. Utterly heartbreaking.

Dragon Age: Inquisition, arrrrrr. Curious about Mass Effect 4. I would have added Rise of the Tomb Raider, but meh!

Do you identify as a gamer?

Yes. I have played video games since I was a kid, and it was always this pastime that was just as important as reading to me, and more important than watching TV or movies. I love knowing fellow gamers and being able to talk about fantastic game experiences with them. I love games enough to write about them.

Why do you play video games?

As form of entertainment that I personally find more engaging and immersive than, say, watching TV or a lot of movies. Games suck me in and allow me to experience stories first-hand, or challenge the mind. For me, there’s always something joyous when I start a new game, and fall in love with the medium all over again.

Share this:

Like this:

Related

3 Comments

DA2 got 4.3 on metacritic?! Wow, I knew it was criticized but I didn’t think it got that badly slammed. I really liked DA2. Recycled dungeon environments are pretty easy to overlook when the story, characters and gameplay are so good.

Just go anywhere where gamers are likely to talk about Bioware or Dragon Age, and the slamming will commence. I don’t know what makes people rebel against it so much, but the reduced size of the world plus the recycled maps bring all the rage the DA yard. My theory: Anders is rather aggressively written as far as romances go and that’s probably made a lot of dudes uncomfortable. But that’s just a theory. I love that game. I wrote fiction about it. 🙂 I am only hoping DA:I will be just as good.